Global Warming +2

About t Two years ago, I whined that my daffodils were already blooming on January 7th. I didn’t have time to photograph them or write about it, but the first one bloomed on January 1st this year.

Can you imagine 10 years down the road when daffodils bloom for Christmas?

The map below shows the increase (in red) or decrease (in blue) of the “hardiness” zone that gardeners use to determine which plants are suitable to grow in the zone in which they live.



For those that care to read more about it, I recommend Wikipedia as a starting point.

Global warming

”Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and scientists are more than 90% certain most of it is caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases produced by human activities such as deforestation and burning fossil fuels. These findings are recognized by the national science academies of all the major industrialized countries.”

”Other likely effects of the warming include more frequent occurrence of extreme weather events including heatwaves, droughts and heavy rainfall events, species extinctions due to shifting temperature regimes, and changes in crop yields.”

”In a 4 °C world, the limits for human adaptation are likely to be exceeded in many parts of the world, while the limits for adaptation for natural systems would largely be exceeded throughout the world. Hence, the ecosystem services upon which human livelihoods depend would not be preserved.”

Don Brown
January 8, 2011

P.S. I forgot to link the USDA Hardiness Zone map and the controversy behind updating it, which is what inspired this post in the first place. Sheeesh!